When you downloaded java 64 bit, this does not necessarily mean, than Minecraft is using the latest version you downloaded. Especially, when you use the "New Launcher", it uses its own version of Java. When editing your profile, you can choose, which Java you want to use by specifying the path to the Java executable.

From my experience, Windows 10 PC lag more often than Windows 7 and I believe, this is due to some background cleanup tasks together with some antivirus tools slowing down Disk IO ang enerating a lot of wait fpr your CPUs. Most likely, your Minecraft logs will show some warning about ticks missing and "Can't keep up" etc.

Keeping an eye on the task manager and the IO stats might give you a hint, whats going on.

Firefox also had a couple of failed downloads, but was able to resume the download instead of starting from scratch. So after 5 attempts, I had the full 1.1 MB package and it matched the sha checksum MC generated.

first of all, try to get all the achievements from the game. Building big farms (iron, gold, wither skeleton, slime,maybe even a wood farm using a wither as lumberjack) is fun, too and can take you a while.Get decent armour and weapons and fight the ender dragon...

If you believe, you are skilled, start with a skyblock map and complete the objectives from that.

Another step is to add a few mods. A combination of Iron Chests, Ender Storage, Industrialcraft, Buildcraft, Aromas Mining world, Applied Energistics, Forestry, Botania can keep you busy for ages. Add Railcraft for some challenges setting up tracks and Bibliocraft, Carpenters blocks, Ye Gamol Chattels and Chisel2 to decorate your house... Add Gravestone, Millenaire and MoCreatures to populate the world a bit more and you end up with my current setup (OK, I have ChickenChunks, NEI, yalsm) am playing for a few months now.

Nether coordinates are overworld coordinates divided by 8 for x/z and divided by 2 for y. There is an algorithm on how to determine to which portal to link to, but I would recommend having a look (using the statistics to determine directions in the nether properly), where the next land mass in the nether is. Then I would go back to the overworld and walk about 1024+ blocks into that direction and build another portal.

On the other hand, take your usual surplus of cobblestone, craft some slabs for ceilings/floors and start building a bridge. A lot of lava around you usually means a good place for some pigman farm. Holding shift while walking helps you not to fall into lava.

If you leave 3 blocks between branches you cover a 33% larger volume while missing very few ores, you'll get more diamonds by finding more fullsized ore deposits than by worrying about finding every single solitary (or double) diamond.

The same logic applies to tunnel height, you'll find more ore by digging three 2X1 tunnels than with one 6X1 tunnel.

Hmm, I'll try the 2x 2 high tunnels, however, I prefer not to leave out the 1block wide, 1 block high 100 block long diamond vein, MC will generate for sure, because I am digging around it ;-)

At my base/home, I usually dig out a staircase (because its nice), a ladder and a shaft with water at the bottom until I hid bedrock. I use buckets to pick up lava and fuel my furnaces and a water bucket to create obsidian. Once, I am at bedrock level, I create a small room with enough furnaces and chests and dig a 6 high tunnel to the north and south. from those tunnels, I create brances and I leave 2 stone between the branches to guarantee, that I am not missing any ore.

As I operate an iron farm with 3 artificial villages on top of each other, I have enough iron for a lot of buckets and a lot of trading opportunities. Together with a mob farm (which gives me experience), this allows for good enchanted diamond armor and tools (currently, I only need to create diamond pants, everything else can be traded in).

Lava is a nice fuel for furnaces and together with hoppers, 4-5 furnaces can smelt all the ores and cobble I am producing, when mining.

I have been playing this game for 2 years now. I bought it on a boring raining saturday (hey, 20 € for some entertainment for the weekend is well spent) and it got me hooked until now. Every time, it became boring, I looked for a new challenge
- Hardcore
- Automation/Redstone
- Mods
- Skyblock (Normal and Hardcore)
- More than those 30 boring easy challenges on skyblock (a lot more possibilities on modern versions)
- Create my own modpack
- Set up my own (modded) server (not buying, but create my own VM and create some puppet classes to deploy MC etc...)
- Playing REALMS with some nice people

I have not yet reached the "My, what could I do next" phase yet, but I assume, going back to some antique games for Nostalgia for a few weeks or months would be my solution. Age of Empires (8 players), Neverwinter Nights... So many things to do

I had some fun reading this thread and ofc, I have to give my 2 cents, too:
* It is a parents responsibility to educate their children. If a child steals a credit card, this is theft and there are ways to prevent that and/or get compensation
* In Germany, we have a law which entitles parents to reverse a transaction of a minor child if the value of that transaction exceeds the childs regular pocket money. If the child misuses the credit card to buy items for a few hundred dollars or more, they can get it back. Sadly, if the server operates from outside Germany, that doesn't help much.
* Asking for donations to operate a server is free. If you get something in return for a donation which enhances your gameplay makes it a purchase.
* Making money from operating a server is legitimate business. Actually, you are selling IP packets ...
* Everyone is greedy, this is an age old survival instinct. Soem of us can use their mind to override instincts. So, in-game purchases work better than a monthly subscription, because most people see the $0 price tag only and don't realize what happens when they buy soemthing in game for a small amount of money (again to obtain something they want). Some server operators maximize their profit that way.
* Allowing the market to regulate itself is a good idea, if the market is broken, external intervention is needed.
* A discussion about some memorabilia in the background showing Lara Crofts breasts is amusing. In some cultures, this is as offending as handing fire-arms to civilians (and worse, children) is to me. (Hmm, Lara croft also has big guns...). However, we should be able to accept that there are different cultures out there.

If someone at Mojang would ask for my opinion:
* I would allow modders to profit from their mods the same way youtubers can profit, e.g. by showing ads, by asking for donations and even by selling their mods. A central mod list with votes could help people to pinpoint the black sheep
* I would allow server operators to earn money via subscriptions and in-game purchases as long as they're not limiting the games functionality and you have to pay to get access to the same resources. A central server list with price information could help the market. Maybe even voting (for registered users) would be a good idea to find "good" servers

One note aside: I am running a couple of servers (mostly web servers) for different purposes, I am making money of some and I am sponsoring others (especially web sites for non-profit organisations). For me, Minecraft is a hobby and I am willing to spend some money for having fun. Operating a Minecraft server is part of that hobby and I can pay for the server cost. If someone donates to support this, thats nice. If someone says "Thank you", thats nice, too. But I would operate the server anyways. Its just more pleasant if you get recognition.

This is the dump from a vanilla server with forge crashing on the drop of a charm. I reduced the rarity to 2 so I had not to wait too long and the crash happens almost every other monster I slay in the XP farm:

I had some fun reading this thread and ofc, I have to give my 2 cents, too:
* It is a parents responsibility to educate their children. If a child steals a credit card, this is theft and there are ways to prevent that and/or get compensation
* In Germany, we have a law which entitles parents to reverse a transaction of a minor child if the value of that transaction exceeds the childs regular pocket money. If the child misuses the credit card to buy items for a few hundred dollars or more, they can get it back. Sadly, if the server operates from outside Germany, that doesn't help much.
* Asking for donations to operate a server is free. If you get something in return for a donation which enhances your gameplay makes it a purchase.
* Making money from operating a server is legitimate business. Actually, you are selling IP packets ...
* Everyone is greedy, this is an age old survival instinct. Soem of us can use their mind to override instincts. So, in-game purchases work better than a monthly subscription, because most people see the $0 price tag only and don't realize what happens when they buy soemthing in game for a small amount of money (again to obtain something they want). Some server operators maximize their profit that way.
* Allowing the market to regulate itself is a good idea, if the market is broken, external intervention is needed.
* A discussion about some memorabilia in the background showing Lara Crofts breasts is amusing. In some cultures, this is as offending as handing fire-arms to civilians (and worse, children) is to me. (Hmm, Lara croft also has big guns...). However, we should be able to accept that there are different cultures out there.

If someone at Mojang would ask for my opinion:
* I would allow modders to profit from their mods the same way youtubers can profit, e.g. by showing ads, by asking for donations and even by selling their mods. A central mod list with votes could help people to pinpoint the black sheep
* I would allow server operators to earn money via subscriptions and in-game purchases as long as they're not limiting the games functionality and you have to pay to get access to the same resources. A central server list with price information could help the market. Maybe even voting (for registered users) would be a good idea to find "good" servers

One note aside: I am running a couple of servers (mostly web servers) for different purposes, I am making money of some and I am sponsoring others (especially web sites for non-profit organisations). For me, Minecraft is a hobby and I am willing to spend some money for having fun. Operating a Minecraft server is part of that hobby and I can pay for the server cost. If someone donates to support this, thats nice. If someone says "Thank you", thats nice, too. But I would operate the server anyways. Its just more pleasant if you get recognition.